(If
you have reconditioned callipers before - you'll find this article boring)

For
some time now, whilst driving, I had feeling that the brakes needed
looking at. I have previously fitted braided flexible hoses and
these have sharpened up the feel no end and impressed the hell out of the
MOT inspector.

Now
I could feel the car twitch to one side as I began to apply the brakes and
sometimes, they squealed for a while after I had braked. The other
clue was that the front wheels were getting incredible black from brake
dust, despite me cleaning them fairly regularly. My diagnosis -
sticking brake callipers.

I
thought about some shiny new ones, these are still available as the
Girling Type 14 Mk3 calliper was used on lots of cars. Rimmer
Brothers list them under the Dolomite at £80.00 outright or £63.00
reconditioned. Although the shiny parts were attractive, being a
cheapskate, I opted for a repair kit from Rimmer's - Dolomite Part No.
520957 - £13.00 - that's more like it. Ordered early on Friday
morning and it arrived on Saturday morning in the post - one genuine Lucas
Girling repair kit.

I
checked the Haynes manual and found that for once it was quite helpful,
but seemed to show the calliper in one piece all the time, I know
from past experience that getting the pistons out can be very difficult
like this. I also chatted with another Marina owner (Chris Kirman)
and he suggested that once I had got them off the car that I should split
the callipers as it makes the job easier - good advice.

Preparation
- I sealed the brake fluid by putting some cling film under the cap on the
brake master cylinder, to stop it draining down when I stripped of the
callipers. Not having done a Marina calliper before, I decided to do
one side a time to avoid the car being off the road too long if I hit any
problems. So I started on the nearside one. Off with the
wheel, disconnect the little brake pipe that runs from the calliper to the
bracket on the suspension leg and undo the two big bolts that hold the
calliper to the bracket - 5 minutes - hey presto.

The
calliper was very mucky (road dirt and brake pad dust) and oily from the
brake fluid in the back of the calliper spilling all over the place, so I
washed it all down with Gunk and then cleaned it with white spirit.

Holding
the calliper in my trusty Workmate, I undid the four bolts that hold the
two halves of the calliper together, be careful as you open it as there is
an 'O' ring in there and the repair kit doesn't have a new one. This
is the seal around the hole that allows the brake fluid to move to the
outside calliper. You can see it in the shot below, sitting on the
calliper half on the right.

The
next job is to pull out the pistons from their housings, they are a close
fit (a) to avoid brake fluid losses, (b) so that they run true in the
calliper bore, (c) minimise the rubber seal, (d) to make it difficult for
the home mechanic to remove them so that they send them to a specialist.

Firstly
strip off the wire circlip and the dust cover (new ones in the kit), this
exposes a lip at the top of the piston.

I
found the easiest way to remove the piston is to clamp the calliper half
in a vice and get two large tyre levers or flat head screwdrivers.
Position your levers on opposite sides of the piston with the blades under
the lip. Apply equal pressure so that the piston comes straight up,
if you apply more pressure to one or other side, then the piston will jam
in the bore.

Of
course if you have access to an airline, you can rig something that will
seal into the passageway and pop them out with a blast of compressed air.

With
the pistons out , you may have something like this. You can see the
groove in the calliper, this is where the new rubber seal goes, you can
also see some marks on the cylinder wall, there were similar marks on the
pistons. These are caused by the piston sticking in the bore and
were the cause of the snatching and squealing that I had
experienced. The piston and bore are precision pieces so need to be
treated v carefully.

I
washed out all the passageways with white spirit and pushed a pipe cleaner
through them. I then cleaned up both parts with a piece of 90 gram
printer paper, using no abrasives, but soaked in a little white
spirit. What you don't want is anything that will make the piston or
calliper even slightly oval. Five minutes on each piston and
calliper brought them up well. If the piston is badly scored, then
they are available new from Rimmer's or from brake specialists, I saw some
at an auto jumble for £1.00 each.

OK
so now the rebuild, the first job is to lubricate everything. There
is a special red grease available for hydraulic parts, useful on clutches
also, it is specially formulated not to degrade rubber parts. I
bought a tin for a fiver at an autojumble, but there is enough there for
me to do a set of callipers every day for the rest of my life. You
can also by little tubes, for about £1.50 (sorry for the blurry shot).

First
grease up anywhere where the rebuild kit will touch, then insert the
rubber seal into the groove in the calliper. Now you need to squeeze
the piston into the calliper, so that it fits inside the new seal.
To do this requires more than hand pressure and you need to keep it
parallel to the calliper walls. I used a woodworking G clamp and
gently wound it in about half way - perfect.

Next
comes the outer dust seal and circlip. Fit the inner edge onto the
piston first and then push the piston home until it is flush with the
calliper face. Then it's is easy to fit the outer edge over the
calliper lip.

Now
the difficult part - the wire circlip holds the outer edge onto the
calliper, you have to open up the circlip to fit it and and at the same
time avoid nicking the very thin dust seal. I found that fitting one
end and holding it with my thumb and then chasing the circlip around the
calliper with a fine flat headed screwdriver did the job. Push it
home so that it sinks into the calliper groove trapping the rubber seal
all the way round. Repeat the process on the other calliper half.

Next
find that O ring, use some of the red grease to stick it into its' recess
in the outside calliper. Lay the outer calliper on its back and hold
the inner calliper (with the mounting lugs) over it. Drop in the
bolts and line everything up. Carefully lower the inner half down,
making sure that you don't dislodge the O ring. Bolt the two halves
together and you are done!

I
just refitted my callipers, but if you wanted to, at this stage you could
mask up and spray the complete calliper a pretty colour with one of the
coloured calliper paints available from Halfords etc.